In the generation of digital images by, for example, a digital camera, the problem is noise (hereinafter, appropriately referred to as “color noise”) occurring in a color component. In order to reduce the color noise, for example, a low-pass filter (LPF) process is performed on a color-difference signal.
In many cases, the color noise is generated in a low frequency range in which a variation in a signal level is small. Therefore, it is preferable to reduce the passband of the LPF in order to effectively cancel the color noise. However, when the passband of the LPF is reduced, a high frequency component in the object is removed. In this case, blurring (color bleeding) is likely to occur at the boundary between colors.